


This Was a Home Once

by spn1dneedit



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Polyamory, and coincidentally afraid of the known too, ben hanscom is the best, mike is indecisive and afraid of the unknown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:01:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24197128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spn1dneedit/pseuds/spn1dneedit
Summary: Essentially, Mike spent forty years waiting to leave Derry, but now that he's gone, he can't stop thinking about home.
Relationships: Bill Denbrough/Mike Hanlon, Bill Denbrough/Mike Hanlon/Ben Hanscom/Eddie Kaspbrak/Beverly Marsh/Richie Tozier/Stanley Uris, Mike Hanlon/Ben Hanscom, Mike Hanlon/Beverly Marsh, Mike Hanlon/Eddie Kaspbrak, Mike Hanlon/Richie Tozier, Mike Hanlon/Stanley Uris
Comments: 4
Kudos: 42
Collections: Poly Losers Club Fic Exchange Vol.2





	This Was a Home Once

**Author's Note:**

> Written for @poetromantics on tumblr! For your prompt of a group argument and some straight up angst ;) thanks for the prompts!!! 
> 
> Also thank you to @poly-losers-club for being a G and hosting not one, but two fic exchanges in a little over 6 months!

It’s been almost nine months since Mike left Derry with the Losers and moved in with Ben in LA and he has been adjusting to life outside of Derry the same way he’s adjusted to things all of his life: He accepts the pain and discomfort, embraces the good things about it, and pretends that he doesn’t imagine a life where it hadn’t happened every day.

Mike would swear to everyone and anyone that asked that he loves his new life.

He loves his new librarian job, even though the library is three times as big as his own, and there are more computers than stacks of books, and everything is different.

He loves his new car, the one he’d accepted begrudgingly from Richie because they’d sold the only car Mike had ever driven before leaving Maine. It has a keyless start and a dial for a gear shift, but none of his memories from the last thirty years.

He loves Ben’s house because it has a swimming pool, a fridge that’s always stocked with food he loves, and the six people he loves the most in it. It’s about eight times as big as his apartment over the library and always just cold enough to bother Mike, but he loves it.

Mike loves his new life, he would say with a smile if anyone asked. 

But at night, sandwiched between whichever Losers crawled into bed with him after dinner, Mike admits to himself everything he can’t bear to say out loud.

It’s not his life. The job isn’t his, the car isn’t his, and the house isn’t home.

He thinks about home every night. Derry. How can a place be both his worst nightmare and the only place he’d rather be?

Everything is different and worse and better at the same time. It makes Mike’s head hurt. He thinks about it so much, it’s a surprise when Mike checks the date at work and realizes tomorrow is the anniversary of his parent’s death.

It’s a gut punch.

How could he have forgotten? Almost every night of his life he’d had nightmares about the fire that were so vivid and real Mike knew down to the day how long it had been since they died. Since he’d left Derry, he hadn’t had one. He’d been so caught up in good sleep, great sex, and passively getting used to new things he’d let the anniversary of the worst thing that’s every happened to him sneak up on him.

There, in the too nice break room of the too lavish library, Mike decided he needed to go home. He misses it too much. He misses his apartment, the farm, his job, he misses his life. He misses home. He needs to go home. Maybe for a few days, maybe forever.

Mike can’t stop thinking about it for the rest of the workday. He can’t decide if he wants go back because he actually misses, Derry or not. When he thinks about it, the only things he remembers liking about Derry had to do with his family that aren’t even alive anymore, or the Losers, that he’s with now anyway.

But just when he decides he doesn’t really miss it, a voice inside tells him he does. LA isn’t his home. That house isn’t his, this job isn’t his, even his car isn’t his. Nothing here is his, but everything in Derry was because that was his home. It was where he had been his whole life and where he was meant to be.

It was a horrible place to call home, but at least he could call it that, Mike thought on his way back to Ben’s house.

Mike parks his car right next to Stan’s and right behind Bev’s in the driveway as always, and makes his way right into the kitchen where Eddie and Bev are setting the table, almost certainly talking shit about one of Eddie’s coworkers or the junior designer Bev keeps having problems with. Richie and Bill are putting the finishing touches on a salad, though Mike knows from experience that means Bill is cutting too much onion and Richie is sneaking most of it out before he puts more in. And Stan is pointedly turned away from the rest of them, focused on the one burner still going. If it’s gravy, Mike knows he’ll have to intervene.

It makes Mike smile. They have a routine. He likes their routine. Maybe he shouldn’t go.

“Hey Mike.” Stan greets him without turning away from the burner. Mike sees that he’s stirring furiously and walks over to him. He presses a kiss to Stan’s temple, partly just because he wants to do it, partly because Stan has a curious knack for making lumpy gravy without fail.

“Get away from me!” Stan swats when Mike doesn’t pull back immediately. “The gravy is fine.”

“Doubtful, Urine, the only gravy of yours any of us want in our mouths is…”

“Ugh, beep beep, Richie!” Bill scrunches up his face in disgust, then turns and smiles at Mike for a second before going back to chopping onions for the salad.

Mike eyes the gravy cautiously a bit longer, then goes to find Ben to let him know dinner is pretty much ready. Not a hard person to find, Ben is sitting at the desk in his study when Mike walks in. He doesn’t look up when Mike approaches, so he raps twice on the doorframe to get Ben’s attention.

“Hey,” Ben says and folds his laptop top down. He smiles easily as he walks toward Mike. Mike presses himself against the side of the doorway, but doesn’t completely move out of Ben’s way. There’s a reason he came to get Ben before anyone else did.

“Hey,” Mike smiles back, “Dinner’s ready.”

“Yeah, I kinda figured.” Ben smiles brighter when he reaches the doorway, opening his arms without question. They all need this sometimes. Ben gives the best hugs, and Mike has had an excruciating day.

Without saying a word, Mike falls limply into Ben’s open arms, sighing when they close around him.

“Do you want to talk about anything?” Ben asks while holding Mike tight. Mike tries not to give anything away, but he feels himself stiffen.

He pulls back from the hug and looks to the calendar on Ben’s desk. Tomorrow. He needs to go. He’s been in Derry on this day all forty years of his life. He won’t miss it now.

He needs to talk to them tonight.

“It’s probably something I should say in front of everyone.” Mike doesn’t offer anything more, and Ben doesn’t ask. He nods and they make their way back out to the dining room. The salad has just enough onions, and there’s a bowl of lumpy gravy in the center of the table.

Mike slides into the seat left of Stan, chuckling quietly. In the last minute of cooking, Stan managed to ruin the gravy. Without fail, Mike thinks, without fail.

Throughout dinner Mike tries to ignore Ben’s questioning eyes. He wants to enjoy his time with them. Mike knows that once he says he’s going back to Derry everything will change. It’ll change further when Mike admits he might not come back.

“How was you’re day, Mike?” Bev catches Mike off guard with the question.

“It was fine. A lot of the same.” He says, too distracted to come up with anything exciting.

Richie says something and laughs, assuming it’s a joke about how boring his job is, Mike nods and smiles back, not really listening.

Richie says something else and laughs harder, so Mike throws in a chuckle and another nod, still without really listening. Every minute that passes, it’s a minute less that he’ll have to deal with the consequences of telling them he’s leaving. There isn’t a clock in the room, but Mike feels every second.

“Holy shit, Mike! Are you serious?” Eddie’s incredulous voice rings out across the table. Richie is laughing hysterically now, and Mike snaps back into himself, confused and afraid of what he’d agreed to by just smiling and nodding.

Bev and Bill are smiling at him like he’s agreed to something impressive.

Stan looks at him, half impressed like Bev and Bill, half disgusted, with an eyebrow raised.

Ben’s eyes are swimming with concern, he knows Mike wasn’t listening to the question. Mike looks down at his plate and hopes whatever it was, it wasn’t too bad.

“You’ve fucked someone in the stacks of the library before?” Bill tips his head back questioningly and tips his fork to Mike. “I honestly would not have expected that.” That makes Richie and Eddie laugh harder. It even gets Bev and Stan to chuckle a bit too.

Mike hasn’t fucked anyone in the stacks, actually. Before being with the Losers Mike hadn’t actually fucked anywhere but a bed, but he almost doesn’t want to tell them that. They’re all so amused that be has. 

“Nah. Never have.” He admits, still looking at his plate.

Bev wags her fork in the same motion Bill just had, “Nobody here is judging Mikey, and you just said you had.”

“He wasn’t listening.” Mike shoots his head up and stares at Ben accusingly. He has to tell them, he knows. He can’t just leave tomorrow without at least telling them where he’s going and why, but for some reason he wants to wait. He just wishes Ben wouldn’t have exposed him like that.

“Mike?” Eddie presses, questions and concern spinning behind his eyes.

Mike wants to lie, but he’s never been a good liar, and ever since he sort of drugged Bill nine months ago, he’d promised himself he wouldn’t do it again.

“I’m going home for a few days.”

“Home?” Bev whispers it like it’s a question better left unanswered.

Mike feels Stan reach a tender hand over to rest on Mike’s thigh. He isn’t huge on unnecessary touching, so Mike knows it’s more for him.

“Derry. I’m going back to Derry.” Mike says with finality, or at least he hopes he does. His heart is fluttering at a record pace, but still strong and convinced of what he needs to do.

“Derry?” Bev whispers again. Stan’s fingers squeeze Mike’s thigh lightly.

“Derry isn’t home, Mike. This is home.” Mike hears Ben’s convincing voice, but sees his pleading eyes and looks away. He wishes they understood. This isn’t his home. Hell, this wasn’t anyone but Ben’s home until nine months ago. He’s the only one that hasn’t adjusted, and there must be a reason for that. He just doesn’t belong here, with them.

The six of them, they belong with each other. They’ve been out of Derry long enough that their home is wherever they decide to take root and be happy. Mike has been planted in the same place for forty years.

Bev, Ben, Eddie, Bill, Richie, and Stan can move on and forget about where they come from. They’ve done it once, they can do it again. But Mike can’t. He won’t let himself forget his home.

Derry is a racist town, with more problems than a killer clown, but Mike has never known anything else, and without going back at least for a while, he’ll never know if he _can_ have a home anywhere else.

Mike isn’t sure if Derry will always be his only home, but what he does know is that LA isn’t home at all.

“This isn’t my home.” Mike says finally. The words finally jumping from his heart out of his mouth. This isn’t his home. This isn’t his life. This isn’t his job. This isn’t where he’s supposed to be. He’d thought that all of his life he was meant to be with the Losers, and that they were meant to be with him. But being with them, thousands of miles from the place he’d called home his entire life, the place he’d grown up with love and hate and longing and living… It didn’t feel right.

For the past few months, Mike has been simultaneously the happiest and saddest he’s ever been. He just couldn’t say it until now.

Now that he has, he wishes he hadn’t, they’re all looking at him with sad eyes, offended faces, hurt hearts.

He should’ve stayed quiet. Stan’s fingers dig painfully into the meat of Mike’s thigh, but when Mike looks at him, he’s looking straight ahead.

“I’m sorry,” He tries to meet someone’s eyes, but they all avoid looking at him. Mike’s palms start to sweat, “I shouldn’t have said that. I wasn’t trying to be rude or hurt you guys I Just…”

“You just don’t want to be here?” Ben asks quietly, still not looking at him. Mike’s heart burns with every beat. He wishes this house felt like home, that with all the work Ben has put in to making them all feel welcome, he felt better about the stiff couch, the too big kitchen, or the dog. But he doesn’t.

“No, I want to be here. I want to be with you all, but Derry is my home. I’ve never been outside of that town and now I’m on the opposite side of the country from everything I’ve ever known.”

“Isn’t that a good thing? Shit, Mike, Derry fucking sucks. Didn’t someone try to kill you like every fucking day in that town?”

“Richie.” Bev says softly, like a warning. But even when she finally meets his eyes, she looks at Mike like he’s betrayed them in some way, and he gets it.

He knows why they are all looking at him like he’s crazy. He feels crazy for wanting to go back to that place, but he doesn’t feel comfortable here. Even though he never felt safe in Derry, never felt loved or even accepted into the community, he was comfortable. At least partially. It was where he’d always been, and before that night when Bill had kissed him and asked him to leave town with them, it was where he’d always assumed he’d stay.

“No, seriously. Why would you ever think about going back to that shithole? There’s nothing for you there, there’s nothing any of us there!” Richie seethes. He lets go of his fork and it clanks down onto the table, dinner long forgotten.

“I lived my whole life there, and I know… I know none of you get it because you left when you could and you never came back, but I spent my whole life there. You left. I stayed. Derry, as shitty as it is… It’s my home.”

“Derry is your home? I thought you said you were just going for a few days? Are you planning to stay?” Stan asks, flexing his fingers hard into Mike’s thigh one more time before letting go and crossing his arms over his chest. Mike looks down to the imprint his fingers made in his pants.

Truthfully, he isn’t sure what he’s going to do. It’s part of the reason he wants to go. Part of him hopes that once he goes back, they’ll forget about him and the choice would be made, he’ll fall back into his old life and live the life he knew he would. Another part hopes he’ll return to a ghost of Derry, every inch of the city burned to the ground while he was away so that he could walk away from it for good without a second thought. Either way, Mike hoped he’d he wouldn’t have to make a decision on his own.

“Probably not.” He admitted. All of their eyes snapped to him, then it was Mike’s turn to avoid eye contact.

“Probably not? Mike what the fuck does that mean? Are you fucking serious? Tell me you’re fucking joking. _Probably_ not?” Eddie launches out of his chair and starts pacing the dining room. It usually makes Mike smile, seeing Eddie be the same person he was as a kid, but instead he feels a pang in his chest. If he stayed in Derry, he wouldn’t see or feel anything like that again.

“Mikey?” Bill wasn’t angry or incredulous like Richie, Eddie, or Stan. He just sounded sad. Mike cringed back into his seat.

“I’m sorry,” He said, shaking his head. “I have to go.” Mike doesn’t wait for a response. He stands from the table and practically runs up to the bedroom where his clothes are and starts to pack.

Once he starts, he realizes he isn’t sure how many days to pack for. He packs three changes of clothes, full sized bottles of shampoo and body wash, and everything he would absolutely need if he never came back.

After packing and much consideration, he also books a one way plane ticket. He leaves first thing in the morning. A few times hears someone in the hallway pass the room he’s in to get to the master bedroom. No one comes in. Mike isn’t sure if he’s disappointed or happy.

That night, for the first time since they’d all moved to Ben’s house just outside of LA, Mike sleeps in bed alone.

The next morning, Mike gathers his bags and heads downstairs for a last cup of coffee before he gets in an Uber and heads to the airport.

Still dark outside, Mike hadn’t expected anyone to be awake, but when he reaches the bottom of the staircase, Eddie is sitting at the kitchen island, two coffee cups in front of him. He doesn’t say anything, surprisingly, just picks up one of the mugs and holds it out towards Mike.

Mike puts his bags down and takes a tentative sip. He wouldn’t put it past Eddie to slip him a couple of melatonin in his coffee in hopes that he’d pass out before he could leave.

“I didn’t drug your coffee, asshole. I’m not you.” Eddie says, his voice kinder than the words lend themselves to be. Mike takes a longer sip and swallows loudly for emphasis, staring challengingly at Eddie. Eddie stares back until Mike misses his mouth on his next sip and they both burst out laughing.

“I got you a rental car. Just go to the booth at the airport and you’ll have something to drive while you’re there.” Eddie says once Mike’s cleaned himself up and they aren’t laughing anymore. They stare at each other again after that.

Everyone picks on Mike for being the mom of the group, they always have, but times like these, Mike swears it’s Eddie. Mike is the grandma, he thinks, though he’ll never say it out loud. He has warm hugs and a smile that covers his whole face and he gives the second best hugs. But Eddie is definitely Mom. He kisses your booboos and comes with to doctor appointments and orders you a rental car when you hadn’t even thought about how you were going to get anywhere without one.

“Thanks.” Mike says. The ‘I love you’ implied. 

“I told them you only needed it for three days.” Eddie replies. The ‘I love you’ implied.

Three days. Mike can do three days.

“You have to bring it back after three days. You have to come home after three days.”

“I’ll come home after three days.” Mike agrees and puts his coffee mug back on the counter.

“When is your flight?”

“A couple hours from now, I’m gonna get an uber in a few minutes.”

Eddie nods and gets up from his stool at the island. He leaves his coffee mug untouched on the counter. When he passes Mike he pulls the taller man down to him harshly.

“Don’t bother with the uber. Bev will take you.” He mutters, barely finishing his sentence before pressing his lips hard against Mike’s. All of Mike’s thoughts go quiet when they kiss, and he wonders if it’s like that for Eddie too. It’s impossible, he thinks, Eddie’s brain moves a million miles a second, there’s no way it could slow down with a kiss.

But when he pulls away, Eddie’s eyes stay closed for a moment, and when they finally do open, they’re hazy and dilated.

“Be back in three days.” He says, a shaky demand.

“I’ll be back in three days.” He says back, a shaky promise.

Not even a full minute after Eddie walked up the stairs, Bev comes down. She breezes past Mike with a low “good morning” and heads straight to the kitchen island and picks up the full mug Eddie left without a second of hesitation and downs it in one go. She grabs her Mike’s car keys from the hooks by the front door and Mike follows her wordlessly.

Neither of them says much on the way to the airport. They don’t turn the radio on. They drive in silence, so Mike’s thoughts are thunderous.

He’s making a mistake. He shouldn’t go.

He already made a mistake. He shouldn’t have left.

Variations of the same thing go on over and over until they pull up to the terminal.

“You gotta come back, Mike.” Bev is the one to break the silence as Mike reaches for his bags.

He looks at her and wishes again that he could lie to them. This would all be so much easier if he could promise without guilt or wavering.

Instead of saying anything back, Mike reaches over and turns her heard fully toward his and kisses her lightly. He slips out of the car without another word.

Mike, over the years, has become a person who doesn’t make big decisions, Mike thinks while boarding. He couldn’t choose a college, so he stayed on the farm. He never decided to move out, so he stayed there until his grandpa died. He worked in the library because he was already there doing research all the time. He moved into the loft above it because he already worked there. He left with the Losers because they told him he should.

On the plane, somewhere over the middle of the US, Mike realizes that the biggest choice he’s made in almost thirty years, was the decision to get on it.

It was only a few hours between the realization and when Mike arrived in Derry with the rental car, but it felt like he’d already gone through three days. He hadn’t slept well without anyone in the bed with him. He’d slept alone for forty years without a problem, but after only nine months, sleeping alone was impossible now.

To his mild disappointment, upon entering Derry township, Mike found that it had not become a ghost town. Not any more than it already was, anyway.

Despite his exhaustion, Mike drove himself first to the cemetery. That was, after all, the reason he’d decided to leave in the first place. He wanted to be near his parents on the anniversary of the day they died.

Mike wasn’t sure what to do once he got there. In the past, after his grandpa had died and stopped making Mike come put flowers down, he’d always found it to be enough to know he was in the same town as them. He didn’t have any memories of them anyway. Growing up, he’d just sit by their headstones and tell them about whatever was on his mind at the time.

As a kid he talked to them about what games he played, and how his grandpa being too busy and too old to play with him. Sometimes he would whisper the words that got painted on their barn that he wasn’t allowed to say out loud and ask what they meant, never expecting an answer.

As a teen he talked about the Losers and their summer adventures, the scary and the tame. Sometimes he would whisper how he felt about all of them and ask what that meant, never expecting an answer.

Now, sitting on the ground, Mike doesn’t know what to say, so he says everything. He talks about fighting It again and moving with the Losers and his new job and the new car and the new house. Mike talks about everything that’s happened in the last year, and when he runs out of things to say he whispers a question, hoping for, but never expecting an answer.

Where is home?

Mike sits at the cemetery for another few minutes, hoping that he’ll hear the answer in the wind or see it in his head like a vision, but when he doesn’t, he stands up and heads back to the rental car with one last goodbye.

He swears he sees Richie in his right peripheral, waving crazily and running toward him, but when Mike looks no one is there. He heads to the farm, checking his rearview every few feet in case he missed something, or someone.

When he passes the library, he slams on the brakes when he sees Bill grabbing Silver from the bike rack, but just like Richie, when he turns around, there’s no one there. Mike floors it the rest of the way to the outskirts of the town, all the way to the farm. He thinks about slowing down, knowing the Derry police are anything but lenient to people that look like him, but he’d take a five hundred dollar ticket over another hallucination any day.

The farmhouse is dusty, dirty, and in a lot worse condition than he remembers it, but there aren’t any rats, as far as he hears, and his bed is still there, so Mike drops his bags in his room and falls prey to his exhaustion with the afternoon sun in his eyes and his shoes still on.

Mike dreams of Ben.

 _It’s just the two of them sitting at the dinner table and Ben looks straight into Mike’s eyes as he asks again and again “Where is home?” even as Mike yells for him to stop, that he doesn’t know. He never raises his voice, but even as Mike screams, he hears Ben loud and clear. “Where is home? Where is home? Where is home?” Time works differently in dreams, but Mike swears the dream goes on for at least eight hours_.

When Mike wakes up, finally, panting and sweating from his dream, Eddie is sitting at the edge of his bed.

“Eddie!” Mike sits up straight, but when he looks back toward his feet, Eddie is gone. “Fuck.”

Mike presses the sweaty heel of his palm into his eyes until he sees stars and then lets go, willing himself to not see anything else that isn’t there once the stars float away. When he opens his eyes there’s no one but him in the dirty bedroom.

Back in LA, when he’d thought back to Derry, he’d pictured life in this house with his grandpa. The small space filled with the familiar scent of his grandpa’s aftershave and whatever else made it home. He’d thought of home as how it was fifteen year ago, long before he’d been so lonely in this house he’d moved out of it without being able to bring himself to sell it.

This house, without anyone but himself in it, didn’t make Mike feel at home. It made him feel lonely, and dirty, and ashamed he’d left six people waiting for him across the country.

Unable to spend another miserable second in the house, Mike changes clothes and heads back to the rental car. His parents didn’t make him feel at home, his old house didn’t make him feel like home, and the place where he lives three thousand miles away isn’t home.

Maybe he didn’t belong anywhere.

It would make sense. He’s been told since the day he was born that he doesn’t belong in this town, but the second he leaves it, he itches to get back to it, knowing full well there is nothing and no one for him there.

At least back in LA he has something to go back to. He has the new library he was almost close to getting used to, the car he just learned to drive without reaching for the phantom gear shift, the house that’s bigger than four of both of Mike’s combined, and them. The Losers. LA may not be home, but back there he had them.

Mike isn’t even thinking when he puts the car in gear after reaching three times for a dial that wasn’t there, and drives away from the farm. He doesn’t say goodbye to it, he doesn’t need to. That was the house that he grew up in, but the house had never been his home. On the last turn before he gets on the main road, Bev shows up on the side of the road, but Mike just shakes his head and breezes past her.

“She isn’t here,” He says to himself slowly, then into the rearview mirror, “She’s at home.” He looks back toward where he saw her, and she isn’t there. Mike smiles.

Once he reaches the tree line of the woods, Mike turns off the car and marches straight in. He walks briskly over broken branches and dead trees until he gets there. When he does, Mike kneels over the hatch and brushes the leaves off as quickly as he can, then throws it open. He doesn’t wait a second before launching himself down onto the ladder. When he gets down, he waits for the sense of home to fill him. Nothing. He touches the hammock, remembering the fun all the Losers had in it. Nothing. He picks up a discarded shower cap, willing himself to smile at how they used to look with them on. He runs his fingers over the dirt-caked comics and waits some more. He touches everything in there that could remind him of home.

Disappointment creeps in before Mike can remind himself to be optimistic. This is where he always felt safe. This is where he always felt loved. This is where he felt at home. If this isn’t home, where he’d spent countless hours with the Losers every summer before they left, where would home be?

“Mike!” He spins around at the voice, watching as Bill descends the three steps into the clubhouse. Mike shakes his head and closes his eyes, convinced it’s another fake out, but Bill is still there when he opens them.

“Bill!” Mike has never been so happy to see him, he runs over to Bill and brings him in for a deep kiss. He holds Bill into himself as tightly if he can, hands pressing into every inch of Bill that he can reach.

“I can’t believe you’re here.” Mike whispers into Bill’s mouth over and over, just barely breaking the kiss. Bill pulls back further and smiles.

“We’re all here. We decided we couldn’t just let you say you were ‘maybe’ coming back, so we had to come get you and surprise you. But once we got here you weren’t answering your phone, so we split up to look for you. Eddie and I checked the farm before coming here. Actually, we should probably go up and find him. I kind of ran ahead.”

“Yeah you did, you dick.” Eddie says from above as he cautiously steps onto the first rung of the ladder. Even with his back to him, Mike can tell Eddie is rolling his eyes, but not really angry. As soon as he steps onto the ground, Mike picks him up into the same bear hug he’d just given Bill.

Eddie lets it go on for a few seconds before raising his arm to push Mike’s shoulder to let him down.

“You’ve gotten way too comfortable just picking me up out of nowhere.” He scolds, trying not to grin.

“Sorry.” Mike looks down, embarrassed. He’d forgotten himself in his happiness for a minute. Eddie rolls his eyes again, smiling just a bit. This is it, Mike thinks, this is home. He wonders how he could forget it.

“Don’t be sorry.” Eddie says and pulls Mike down by the back his head for a kiss. Mike’s arms circle Eddie’s waist and pull him in as close as he can get. It’s only been a day since he’s seen him, but it’s been a day too long.

Someone whistles behind them and Mike steps back from Eddie. Richie and Bev had climbed down the ladder and were both to Mike’s left. Clearly the whistler, Bev smiles. Richie doesn’t. Mike swallows and looks back at Bev.

“Well, Homeschool” She laughs, and takes a small step forward “I’d like a little of whatever Eds was having.” Mike smiles back and doesn’t hold back like he did with Eddie. He scoops Bev in his arms swiftly and kisses her deeply.

There were a lot of things Mike missed out on during years alone in Derry and kissing was one of them. He’d had one night stands as people stopped by Derry on their way to somewhere else, but they never kissed. And the people he had kissed, it was never like this. It was always just a formality, an extra step, completely unnecessary.

But with them it’s different. Everything is different really, but especially kissing. Mike could spend hours kissing Bev like this. He would give up food and water for days for just one kiss from Richie. Stan brought Mike to life with his mouth, and Bill killed him with every touch of his tongue, and would rather die than live another day without Eddie’s lips on his. And Ben… the first time Mike kissed Ben, that’s when he’d realized he couldn’t be without him or the rest of the Losers.

Kissing before was alright.

Kissing now is life and love and healing. Mike had forgotten that for a while.

Finally letting Bev back down, Mike looks over to Richie who looks back at Mike with a bored expression. Mike can’t help it, after Bill, Eddie, and Bev, his eyes drop Richie’s mouth.

“I’m sorry.” He says instead of kissing him like he wants to. 

“Fuck you.” Richie snarks back. Mike flinches, then shakes his head slowly.

“I deserve that.” He says, because he knows he does. He’d almost left them because he was too stupid to realize his home wasn’t ever a house or a car or a clubhouse.

“Yeah you do. I fuckin’ promised myself I would never come back to this shitty town not once but twice, and I’ve come back both times. For you.”

“I’m sorry, Rich.” Mike apologizes again. He hates being the reason for the frown lines around Richie’s mouth, or the anger clouding his eyes. “I’ve just been here my entire life, and leaving, especially leaving with all of you was confusing and scary and… I don’t know… I’m sorry.”

Richie sighs, then slowly, his frown slides into a smile, “Fuck you.” He says right before he takes the few steps into Mike’s personal space and kisses him hard. Mike let’s his hands rest on Richie’s sides while Richie holds Mike’s face hard between his hands.

Richie kisses like fire; hot, consuming, and leaves you gasping. Mike can’t get enough. He breathes in the flames and revels in the burn, completely unaware of everything else around them until one of Richie’s hands slides from his cheek to shoulder and presses him back the same way Eddie had. Mike chases the kiss for a moment, leaning forward into it as Richie leans back.

“I’m still mad.” Richie says, but he’s smiling, and his lips are slick and red from their kiss.

It’s quiet in the clubhouse for a moment. Mike isn’t sure what to say to Richie, or to any of them. He opens his mouth to say he’s sorry again, not that he could ever say it enough times to convey just how bad he feels about leaving them like that, but just as he does, Bev’s phone buzzes.

“Stan and Ben didn’t find Mike at the library,” She smirks down at the phone then winks up at Mike, “I’ll tell them to come here.”

“Jesus, Mike, you had us looking all over town for clues to where you were like the Scooby Gang.” Richie laughs when Mike shakes his head, embarrassed. “Eddie is Scrappy Doo.”

“Fuck you, asshole, you’re Scrappy Doo.”

“How can I be Scrappy if you’re Scrappy?” Richie laughs smugly, pushing all of Eddie’s buttons too easily. Mike tries to not smile, lest Eddie see and turn his wrath on him.

“I’m not scrappy, I’m—”

“How about you’re both forty and arguing over which one of you is a cartoon character from the when we were kids?” Bill interrupts. He’s shaking his head, but when he turns to look at Mike, they share an amused smile.

“Whatever.” Eddie says dejectedly, and goes to rifle through whatever dusty artifacts from their childhood remain down here.

“Yeah, whatever.” Richie repeats, then turns to Mike and, just loud enough that everyone can still hear, whispers, “He’s scrappy.”

“Beep Beep Richie.” Bill, Mike, and Bev all say together, cutting Eddie off as he opens his mouth to start ranting again.

“What’d he do?” Ben says from the entrance, smiling. He starts down the steps, followed closely by Stan.

“He and Eddie were arguing over something dumb.” Bev shrugs.

Ben nods, still smiling. Stan rolls his eyes, walking directly over to Mike. He wastes no time hauling Mike in for a deep, but quick kiss before turning back to make sure Richie and Eddie get the full force of his eyeroll. “We’re back in Derry, in the clubhouse, while Eddie and Richie argue about something stupid. Glad we’re thirteen again. Now can we please grab Mike and leave before we have to fight another fucking clown?”

Mike chuckles and opens his mouth to agree and leave, but the rest of them stay silent. All of their eyes are on him, watching him with worried and questioning faces.

“What?” He asks, scanning all of their raised eyebrows and worry-bitten lips.

“Do you even want to leave?” Stan asks the question, but they all nod along. Mike knows his answer, but doesn’t say anything right away.

Of course he wants to leave with them. He wants to leave this disgusting, racist, mysterious town and come back a week from never the fuck again. He knows that’s what he wants.

But he’d also wanted that when he left the first time. It’s all he was thinking when he and the others packed up his shit and moved it out to LA with them. He’d wanted to be leave so badly he’d forgotten that, as fucked up as Derry was, it had been his home all his life.

And when he finally got away, he remembered. He remembered that Derry is where his parents and grandparents are, and where they always will be. He remembered that Derry is where he grew up, somewhere between the farm and Main Street. He remembered that Derry is where he has always been, that he has no memories from anywhere else, and if he forgets them, like the rest of the rest of them once did, he’ll have nothing.

So, as much as Mike liked his new life with the Losers, he thought wanted to go back to Derry. Not because he actually missed it, as he thought before, but because he didn’t want to wake up one day and not know anything about where he’d come from. Because he didn’t want to forget his home.

But over the last day, at the farm, at the cemetery, and in the clubhouse, Mike had realized two things. 

First was that Mike could never forget his home. Not when he lived with them, not when a picture of them was his phone background, and not when they flew across the country just to _maybe_ bring him back to LA with them.

Second was that Derry was not, and never was, his home.

The Losers were his home and Mike felt silly for spending two hundred dollars on a one way plane ticket to realize it.

“Yes.” He said finally, breaking out into a grin, “I want to go home with you.”

“You’re sure?” Ben asked.

“I’m sure.” Mike’s cheeks hurt from his smile, but he can’t help it. Ben smiles and steps forward, squeezing Mike in the same bear hug Mike had given Bev and Eddie. Ben gave the best hugs. There’d been some argument in the beginning over whether it was Ben or himself, and even though Mike had never experienced one of his own hugs, he was absolutely sure it was Ben.

Even years ago, the few times they had allowed themselves to hug it out as teenagers, Mike knew a hug from Ben was the best hug he was ever going to get.

He circled his arms around you and hugged you like a lover, a best friend, and family all at once. He always smelled nice, and even when he didn’t say anything, the deep rumble in his chest from his breathing always sounded like exactly what you needed to hear.

Ben Hanscom gives the best hugs, Mike thinks, as he presses his nose deeper into Ben’s neck.

“I’m glad you’re coming back. This wouldn’t work without you.” He says pressing a light kiss to the side of Mike’s neck. Mike tries to hide the wetness in his eyes by burrowing further into Ben. He breathes Ben in and smiles. He smells like home.

“He’s a sap, but he’s right.” Mike opens his eyes to Bev smiling at him as she presses herself to Ben’s back, joining their hug. One by one, they all join in, and Mike let’s his eyes flutter shut. He might be crying; he might not be. It doesn’t matter because he’s exactly where he’s meant to be: Home.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was such a beast to write, details on my tumblr @mybbytony but I'm glad I worked through it because I love poly losers with all my heart. Also, I started writing an explicit scene for this, but realized that probably wouldn't be advisable with an underage prompter, so let me know if I should post a second chapter with the scene later!!  
> And finally, I live on encouragement so plz leave kudos and comments if ur so inclined


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